Room No. 10 (11 page)

He put down the bottle. He remembered the name he had heard in the dream. Ellen. A woman’s voice had shouted it, straight through the wind. Ellen. He had seen Paula but heard Ellen’s name. He hadn’t seen Paula’s face, but it must have been her. She had hidden her hand.

They were connected. Ellen and Paula were connected.

No.

He remembered what he’d said to Bertil the other day, when they were talking about the case of Ellen Börge: There was something there. Something I could have done. Something I could have seen. It was there, in front of me. I should have seen it.

What was it he should have seen? Did it have to do with Paula Ney’s case? Why had he started to think about Ellen Börge when Paula Ney’s death came into his life?

It was the room.

The hotel, he thought. Revy, they have it in common. And the room, and their age, twenty-nine years old.

But I’m not the same.

Winter freed himself from the sink counter; it felt as though he had become fastened to it.

He went into the living room and sat down on the sofa. Everything was still dark.

Where is Ellen?

Was she wearing sunglasses?

No, quit it now, Winter.

What did Paula’s hand mean? What was it for? Did the fingers point anywhere? Were they supposed to understand it? Go in the right direction?

No.

Yes.

No.

A
much younger Erik Winter stepped in through the door and nodded at the guard behind the glass. The man smiled, as though they shared a secret joke.

Winter looked at the elevator doors. They gleamed with a dull sheen that threw his mirror image back like a silhouette. You could be anyone.

In the elevator he thought: This is like my first trip.

The doors opened into the hall and he walked out. He could see the lawn of Gamla Ullevi, the old stadium, through the window. It was green like in a painting. He walked across the hall and pressed the combination to the tempting corridor inside. It was the first time. He could tell it was a special day. The door didn’t open. He pressed the combination again, but nothing happened. It wasn’t the wrong code, as long as they hadn’t changed it since yesterday afternoon. He pressed it a third time.

“You must be lost, kid.”

He turned around. The man was smiling, but it wasn’t a friendly smile. Winter didn’t recognize him. He was dressed in civilian clothes, like Winter. But “civilian” was a definition with a wide scope. Maybe Winter looked like a snob. The other man definitely looked like a thug. Winter recognized most faces at the police station, but not this one. It wasn’t a pleasant face. It could scare people, and not always in the right way. The chin was square and the ears were smaller than they should be. The eyes had a particular shine that Winter suspected was there a little too often. He had a smile that wasn’t calming. That face belonged on the other side of the law, on page one or two or three in the crime registry. It belonged to a new client.

Or a new crime-buster.

“Identification, please,” said the crew-cut thug, extending his hand and smiling his strange smile again.

“Listen here . . .”

“Identification! We don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Harry scraping on the door of the CID.”

“I work here,” Winter said, backing up a step as his aggressive colleague took a step closer. He was a colleague. Winter recognized the scent of yesterday’s liquor in the thug’s morning-fresh breath. There were a few small ruptures in his eyes. He wasn’t in a joyful morning mood. Winter wasn’t either. He was starting to become annoyed by this act.

“We haven’t ordered any shoe or window polishing today,” his colleague said, smiling his smile again and shoving Winter in the shoulder. Winter landed one where it hurts most.

“I have never seen the like!”

Winter was staring straight into a different face, more wrinkled than the other one, but with clearer eyes. The face was close. Winter sensed a vague but definite scent of tobacco. It came from the man’s clothes and was blended with a fresh smell from the cigarette he was holding in his hand. The smoke suddenly stung Winter’s eyes. He blinked to avoid tears. That wouldn’t look good.

“What the
hell
are you two doing?!”

The older man turned toward the younger one, who was sitting beside Winter, the guy with the smile, and pressed his face close to him. There was no smile on the older face. The smile had disappeared from the younger one.

“Do we have to send you out on the street where you belong again, Halders?!”

“He started it.”

“Shut
up
!” the older man yelled; he kept his face where it was, and Winter could see the man’s spit fall like drizzle across Halders’s face. So his name was Halders. He must be new to the unit; not quite as new as Winter but almost. Winter knew that this yelling and spitting
and chain-smoking man was Sture Birgersson, the chief inspector and the boss of the CID. A problem solver with an imagination. That was how he solved problems. But this problem had made him dangerously red in the face. His blood pressure didn’t know where it should go; it looked as though the blood was racing around his body, desperately searching for a way out.

“Are you sitting there
blaming someone else
, you fucking cowardly shit?!”

He pulled his face away from Halders and threw a hard look at Winter. Winter saw that Birgersson’s eyes were yellow, clear and yellow. This was the first time he was working under him. The first day, first hour, first minutes. A brilliant start.

“And what are we going to do with this mannequin?”

Halders sneered.

“I said
shut up
!” Birgersson yelled, without looking at Halders. His face came close to Winter’s again. “I guess you misunderstood the job, huh? Have you seen too many American cop movies?
Miami Vice,
or whatever the hell they’re called? Snobby fags in Armani suits who can beat up anyone they like? Is that what you think this job is all about?”

Winter opened his mouth, but Birgersson yelled “
Shut up!
” before he had time to say anything.

“I put in my vote for you, kid.”

Birgersson stared into Winter’s eyes. Birgersson’s eyes resembled a lunar landscape. He also seemed about as far away as the moon, even though he was so close that Winter could smell the cigarette stink from his mouth. The smoke from the cigarette in Birgersson’s hand rose and stung in Winter’s eyes again, and he had to strain not to blink. Blinking would be a sign of weakness. If he blinked even once, he would be thrown out of this corridor and this department on his head, and he would never again get to solve a case dressed in an Armani suit. It would be the uniform again for him, night patrols in the red-light district around Pustervik again, presumably in the company of Halders. Death would be preferable.

“
Voted
for you, you little shit,” Birgersson said, jerking his face
back and sitting with a heavy crash in his office chair. It was a miracle that it didn’t break. “I even had to
raise my voice,
” Birgersson continued, as though this was something unusual for him to do. “There were people who raised objections about you, and I had to bet my honor that you were ready for the job!” He abruptly turned to Halders. “And then this!”

Halders had the sense to keep quiet.

“If Bertil hadn’t come out of the hall at that moment, who the fuck knows how this would have ended!”

“Presumably with the police commissioner,” said the fourth man in the room. He hadn’t said anything earlier. He was Bertil Ringmar and he was a detective in the unit. He was ripe for the title of chief inspector, overripe; but it was hard always to be in Birgersson’s shadow, hard to step out of it. Winter had exchanged a few words with Ringmar now and then during the past year, and he thought that he was a decent guy. He was about ten years older than Winter. Winter had looked forward to working with him, learning from him.

Now he might have ruined that forever.

At the same time, he would do it again. Ruin it again. Bash Halders for the satisfaction of seeing that damn smile smooth out into something else. Maybe he
wasn’t
ready for this job.

“Not just with the boss,” Birgersson said. “That would be the manageable part. I’m talking about Sahlgrenska Hospital, probably the emergency room, and then the papers of course, and the TV, and court, and the appeal, and the government, and the whole fucking UN!”

•   •   •

There were giant plants in pots in every corner of the café. It was like a jungle, like a reminder that it was possible to go on a long journey. Winter might get all the time he needed soon. It depended on how mature he was in the near future.

They had left the police station as quickly as they could. No one felt like drinking coffee twenty meters from Birgersson’s office.

Halders made a face as he sat down.

“Does it hurt?” Winter asked.

“What?” said Halders.

“I’m really looking forward to working with you,” said Winter.

“Don’t be so sure,” said Halders. “The old man has changed his mind before.”

Old man Birgersson had run out of voice and cigarettes and thrown them out with a warning. Ringmar had been sent off with the two rascals.

“And I don’t think I have time to babysit at work,” Halders continued.

“I don’t plan to sit,” said Winter.

“What do you plan to do, then?” Halders said, smiling his smile.

This has to end, Winter thought. If it takes years, this has to end for good. He’s got the upper hand. Should I ask him to give me a good punch to the gut so we’re even?

Ringmar cleared his throat.

“What Birgersson was trying to say in his, uh . . . subtle way is that this isn’t a schoolyard or a playpen.”

“What does subtle mean?” Halders said.

“Sensitive,” said Winter.

“I knew that you knew it,” said Halders, smiling.

“Sensitive like you,” said Winter.

Halders’s smile remained.

“Does anyone here actually understand what I just said?” said Ringmar.

August had been greener than usual because it had rained more than usual this summer. It was still raining as Winter stood outside Hotel Revy. It was four o’clock in the afternoon and the light had disappeared, sucked up into a sky that was low and gray, a winter sky already, in early September.

He looked up at the third floor, a row of windows out toward the street—three windows, and the one in the middle belonged to room number ten. No one had climbed out of that window in the middle of the night; he knew that much.

Not Ellen Börge. Not anyone else.

The dimness in the lobby was the same as outside. The dimness was intensified by the plants. Winter thought of the café where he and Ringmar and Halders had sat a week or so ago. He thought of southern lands again. There was a strange smell in the lobby. Maybe that was it.

He was alone in there. Music was coming from somewhere, maybe from a radio. The music told him nothing. It sounded like no one was listening. The music stopped and he could hear the rain against the awning over the entrance. There were holes in it; a raindrop had landed on his cheek as he walked up the steps.

The hotel seemed closed, deserted. But a hotel was never closed, especially not this one.

He walked up to the desk and looked around. The music had started again, a low hum. Maybe it was a vacuum cleaner. The sound seemed to come from above. Maybe it was a maid in room ten. Winter had been up there; a technician had been there but there was nothing to investigate. Ellen had stayed there for one night, or almost a night, and had been gone with the first morning light. That was last night. No one had seen her leave Revy, not even the desk clerk. She had paid when she checked in; that was the policy of the establishment. Winter understood why. Most of the guests stayed here for only an hour, half an hour. He wondered why Ellen had chosen a place like this. Maybe that was exactly why. No one said anything, heard anything. Revy was a good choice for a person who wanted to run away. A few hours of contemplation, if that was possible here, maybe rest, hardly sleep, and then away with the morning train, or the bus, south, east, north. To the west there was only sea; in that case it would have to be ships, ferries. They didn’t know which direction she’d gone, if she’d gone. Up to now, no travel agent had sold her any tickets.

The desk clerk showed up behind the reception desk. He stepped out through a doorway that had been in shadow, like everything else in there. There was no door, only a curtain. He yawned, like after a siesta. Maybe it was a difficult job to be a hotel clerk, especially here.
He was a clerk who was responsible for room keys, and it was probably difficult to get uninterrupted sleep here at night.

The man yawned again, without trying to hide it. He was about Winter’s age, not yet thirty. He was wearing a jacket, like Winter, but the difference was that this guy also used his as pajamas.

“Hard day?” Winter asked. “Or night.”

“Uh . . . what?”

The clerk scratched his head. His hair was long in back, short over his ears. He could be Elvis. An ice-hockey-playing Elvis.

“I was here yesterday,” Winter said.

“Oh?”

“The missing person. Ellen Börge.” Winter held out his identification. The clerk studied it with eyes that seemed nearsighted.

“You weren’t here yesterday,” Winter said. “Your colleague said that you would be here now. You were the one who checked her in.”

“Who?”

He hadn’t really woken up yet. Maybe he never really woke up.

“Ellen Börge. You checked her in at eleven thirty.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You remember it?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“No one said you were stupid.”

Not yet, Winter thought. But you’re a cocky bastard. This isn’t the first time you’ve run across the police. The police are here all the time. You’re tired of them. Of us.

“Your colleague showed us the guest register. Her name was there. Can you get it out again?”

“I remember her,” the clerk said without moving. “Börge. I checked the name when she’d gone up to her room. It’s like a guy’s name for a girl, isn’t it?”